1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a probe and a probe set for detecting a DNA of a pathogenic fungus, Candida albicans, which are useful for detection and identification of a causative fungus of an infectious disease, and to a probe carrier on which the probe or the probe set is immobilized. The present invention also relates to a DNA testing method using the same and a DNA testing kit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, reagents for and methods of quickly and accurately detecting the pathogenic fungi in sample have been proposed. For instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H08-089254 discloses oligonucleotides having specific base sequences, which can be used as probes and primers for detecting pathogenic fungi of candidiasis and aspergillosis, and a method of detecting target fungi using such oligonucleotides. In addition, the same patent document also discloses a primer set used for commonly PCR amplifying a plurality of target fungi. Further, the same patent document also discloses a method of identifying the fungus species in a sample involving subjecting a plurality of target fungi in the sample to PCR amplification using the primer set, and then detecting the sequence portions specific to the respective fungi by a hybridization assay using probes specific to the respective fungi.
On the other hand, for a method capable of simultaneously detecting a plurality of oligonucleotides having different base sequences, there is known a method using a probe array in which probes having sequences complementary to the respective base sequences are arranged at intervals on a solid phase (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-313181).